Presidents and Front-page News: How America's Newspapers Cover the Bush Administration

Abstract

Presidency and political communication scholars have given scant attention to how local news media cover the presidency. The author offers a comparative study of coverage of the Bush presidency on the front pages of 100 American newspapers during a five-month period in 2006. Sociological and economic theories predict slanted coverage of national politics by America's newspapers, despite journalistic professional norms to the contrary.The analyses suggest there is a slant to the coverage of President Bush that is partly explained by the political leanings of the newspaper and its audience. Newspapers that endorsed Bush's reelection in 2004 tended to write more favorable headlines, and newspapers in states where Democrats are strong politically tended to write less favorable headlines.